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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25154080">fire burns under your feet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_scathach/pseuds/na_scathach'>na_scathach</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>valgrace week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Leo is vulgar, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - The Trials of Apollo, leo has a dirty mind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:53:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25154080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_scathach/pseuds/na_scathach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo's powers have always been a problem</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jason Grace/Leo Valdez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>valgrace week 2020 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810756</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>2020 Valgrace Week, valgraceforthehalfbloods</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>fire burns under your feet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>dia duit my people. look. <em>look</em>. i know this is late. but its here. shut up. :). discussions of sex below but its mostly leo thinking about sex and joking about it. but i feel like that's the only warning, correct me of i'm wrong! </p><p>title comes from Keaton Hensen's <em>you</em> which is very sad and lovely and only fits with the second half of this small fic. and the fifth days prompt (this fics prompt) is <em>power</em></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Leo’s powers are a fucking problem. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s known that since, like, probably conception. Maybe even before that, his powers are just that fucking bad. Just- terrible and inconvenient and </span>
  <em>
    <span>weird. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And now Leo’s thinking about if the gods have sperm and how </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>does that process work exactly? Is it, like, natural or- oh god, brain, stop it, please. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He groans into his hands as he tries to stop thinking about his dad’s godly sperm, which is bad and he needs brain bleach, or for Tía Callida to show up and pull a Jason on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone beside him looks at him funny, but Leo can’t tell if that’s from the obvious distress or the fact that Leo is at a lecture on the laws of thermodynamics in piper’s hello kitty t-shirt and sweatpants. Leo wants to think it’s about the obvious distress. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, his powers have been detrimental to his life as a whole and have taken his mother away from him, but this? </span>
  <em>
    <span>this? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Is the straw that will break the camel’s back. He’ll petition his Dad to get his powers taken away and he’ll be a normal little demigod boy who doesn’t fucking give their boyfriend 2nd-degree burns while making-out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lets his head drop against the small, pull-out desk attached to his shitty little lecture hall chair, and a small thud can be heard as Leo gingerly tries to bash his brains out on plywood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, it was vaguely traumatic and Leo did have a panic attack about it, but that’s small fries to the future he’s facing. He burnt Jason before they had even gotten </span>
  <em>
    <span>near</span>
  </em>
  <span> third base. Leo’s going to have to be a nun, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>nun</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for the rest of his life, like his great-aunt who he’s entirely sure tried to curse him at his communion because she could, like, sense the fact his dad was a pagan god. Old bitch. Leo wonders if she’s still alive, cursing little boys on their communion days because their dads were pagan gods and said little boys forgot the prayer you say after you eat the bread. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wow, all this pondering on his weird great-aunt is sure keeping him distracted from the fact he’s going to have to be chaste forever. Or risk burning his boyfriend and best friend to death. He bets Percy doesn’t have to worry about </span>
  <em>
    <span>drowning </span>
  </em>
  <span>Annabeth with his </span>
  <em>
    <span>dick. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He spends the next 20 minutes thinking about becoming a monk or asking dad to just take his powers away. He knows intellectually, that his powers are the one thing keeping him alive and shit, but Leo’s a hero of Olympus. That means those horny fuckers owe him and Leo wants to be able to have fun sexy adult times with his boyfriend without his boyfriend </span>
  <em>
    <span>dying. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo’s ignoring how sick the memory of Jason’s burn makes him feel. The stench of burnt flesh and Jason’s surprised yelp as Leo’s fingers burned into his neck. The way Jason’s eyes widened as he realized what happened and how worried </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>looked while Leo lost his shit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t want to lose another thing he loves to fire and destruction. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The professor dismisses them, and Leo only realizes when he feels the movement of the lecture hall, people shuffling and chattering lowly. He quickly stumbles up, just wanting to lie down in his dorm and Not Think About Anything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ducks away out of the hall, ignoring the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Look</span>
  </em>
  <span> Professor Jagruti is giving him and single-mindedly walking through the quad to his dorm building, a few minutes away. He wants to sleep and ignore Jason’s texts and ignore Piper’s snaps and watch </span>
  <em>
    <span>Generator Rex </span>
  </em>
  <span>for the third time this week. He’s miserable and it’s all his fire’s fault. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was even getting used to his fire before the Incident. He was getting comfortable using it, even experimenting with what he could do with it, but it just goes to show that Leo is cursed. The fire isn’t a gift, it’s a burden that his dad doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>realize</span>
  </em>
  <span> is a burden. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ignores everyone as he waves through the small crowds in his dorm building, quickly rushing up the stairs because elevators freaked him out, because he could feel every single piece of machinery in them and Leo was fire incarnate, small spaces were not his thing. MIT dorm buildings are the worst because they’re so filled with </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘oh-we’re-mit-we’re-quirky</span>
  </em>
  <span>’ that Leo usually gags. The people in them are cool enough but MIT’s quirkiness is one of the few things Leo hates about college. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo, Annabeth, and Piper were the only people to go to Uni and Leo’s entirely convinced he made the wrong decision. Yeah, he likes learning and MIT has been the best for that and Leo does love it, but sweet fuck does Leo hate dormmates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo’s dormmate is also a mechanical engineering major, but Leo is here on a scholarship and several different grants, while Liam’s family is old and rich and very New England-y. He’s fine, but...rich. Rich white boys are a strange, vaguely disturbing creature that Leo doesn’t entirely get and prefers not to be in direct contact with them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs as he opens his dorm door, expecting to see Liam playing PS3 games Leo pirated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead of a pale, lanky body with black hair, spread across the bed at the other side of the room, Leo comes face-to-back with Jason. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can recognize it’s Jason by the shoulders and messy blond hair and the dark blue hoodie that Leo likes to steal and the fact that Leo could recognize Jason even if Leo had no memory or no eyes or ears. Seeing him makes his heart feel lighter, his chest feel less tight, but at the same time, Leo is terrified of-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason leaving. Jason being afraid or hurt or angry-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason turns at the sound of the door opening and his blue eyes settle on Leo like a summer breeze. His face changes from one of anxiousness and fear to just- softness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo has no choice but to let the door swing close and bury himself in Jason’s chest, arms clamping around his body and trying to submerge himself into Jason’s skin and chest. Jason lets out a low </span>
  <em>
    <span>hmph </span>
  </em>
  <span>as Leo digs into him, but his arms, almost instantly, circle Leo, one hand settling into Leo’s curls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” Jason greets, pulling Leo into him. “Sorry to surprise you, I just- I didn’t want you to think there was anything-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo fists his hands in the back of Jason’s hoodie and mumbles a muffled “</span>
  <em>
    <span>shut-up” </span>
  </em>
  <span>into Jason’s chest. He doesn’t want to think about Jason hating him or his fire being- chaotic and hungry and willing to eat up everything Leo touches as fuel. He just wants to pretend and not talk about it-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason shuts up and tucks his face into Leo’s curls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo doesn’t cry. Rule of thumb he had learned in care, because crying means bringing attention to yourself, and that means angry foster parents or pissed-off group home workers or taunting foster kids. And Leo had learned to distance himself from his emotions, learned to tear a split between him and whatever he was feeling, so he wouldn’t be able to hurt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo can joke that it’s all about sex or whatever, and yeah, that does play a part, but it’s more the fear, of Leo being unlovable because he’s going to end up hurting the people he loves. That Jason will never be able to hug Leo for too long or Leo will never be able to sleep next to Jason because what if he has a nightmare and fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>kills </span>
  </em>
  <span>him. The only thing Leo can feel safe around is machines because when he accidentally burns the machines he can fix them. He can’t fix Jason if he burns his skin or he can’t apologize to Piper if he melts through her car because he got too excited-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo will never learn control, either, because it’s fire. Fire doesn’t want to be controlled. Fire wants to consume and burn and whip around like living beings. Leo can do his best to keep it inside the cage of his skin, but that’s all he can do, that’s all he’ll ever be able to do because Leo is a fucking danger-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo hasn’t been in foster care in over 4 years and he’s forgotten the rule: don’t cry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s silent and you wouldn’t be able to tell that he actually is crying, but Jason can feel how his shoulders shake and his hoodie starts to dampen. He wants to apologies but he can’t force words out- all he can feel in his throat is fear and childish sadness and salt from the tears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason doesn’t say anything, for a bit, just runs his hand down Leo’s back and rubs his thumb over Leo’s shoulder. Just stays close. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until he clears his throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to sit down?” he asks, breaking the deadly silence of the room. “Your roommate isn’t coming back until tomorrow, I bribed him off. We could- talk? Or even just watch a movie, I don’t want to force you to talk if you don’t want to”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo knows he has to talk, or else this fear and hatred will eat him up just as much as the fire does. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods and separates from Jason, quickly trying to rid his face of the evidence of his weakness. It won’t work, he knows, his eyes feel puffy and irritated, and his face feels wet. He grins weakly at Jason, taking in his overly-messy hair and tired eyes. Maybe he’s been just as worried as Leo has been since last week. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look tired,” Leo tells him, looking up at Jason. Jason opens his mouth to answer, his brow furrowing, but he closed it again. He seems to be debating something, but he quickly leaves it, slipping his hand down to lace their fingers together. He pulls them towards Leo’s side of the room and onto his bed, both of them sitting down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo’s tired, and his tears have made him feel heavy and filled with cotton. They’re both exhausted and Leo wants to curl up into a ball and forget, forget, forget.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should talk,” Leo says, slowly, not looking at Jason, rubbing the skin between his left thumb and index finger. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should,” Jason answers lowly, “but we don’t need to do that right now. Not if- not if we’re both so tired. We could watch a Netflix-” and Leo wants to laugh at Jason’s re-occurring awkwardness with both technology and modern lingo, “-or whatever you want, I just want to- be near you, I guess”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo’s been focusing on his fingers, running the pads of his fingers over the webbing and fleshy scars and nicks that litter his bony hands. He lifts his eyes to look at Jason, who’s- open. Waiting. “Yeah,” and he clears his throat, watching Jason watch him, “Sure, okay”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>dating</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for fucks’ sake, but this kind of- barrier, this wedge is new and something that Leo hates and hates and hates-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason flops backward, eagle-spread and Leo feels familiar fondness crawl up his spine, mouth quirking into something you could almost call a smile. Jason really did act like a puppy sometimes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo rummages for his laptop and quickly sets it up on the bottom of the bed, quickly selecting </span>
  <em>
    <span>How to get away with murder</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which Leo has seen enough times that he can ignore it. It plays and Jason’s in the middle of toeing off his shoes, while Leo does the same to his docs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clambers back up to where Jason is lying and lies close to him, but the thoughts are there, wondering if Leo gets too comfortable, will the fire break free of him, and eat and eat and eat?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jason has his arms wrapped around Leo before he can process what’s going on. He pulls Leo close and buries his face in his curls. “I’ll let go if you want me to, I swear, but you won’t hurt me, Leo. You can’t”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo wants to scream, that, yes he can, the evidence is on his own fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>neck, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but Jason sounds sincere and Leo’s too tired to argue. So he says nothing and lets Jason hold him, smelling his mint body wash with the faint smell of ozone and wet concrete. He’s warm and alive and solid, making Leo feel- normal, grounded in reality, not a freak, even by demigod standards. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo feels mortal with Jason. Vulnerable and weak and in love. To love is to be mortal and Leo can barely acknowledge his godly side when Jason is curled against him and breathing and bathed in the lukewarm light of the sun shining through Leo’s curtains. He feels like Leo Valdez, the only child of Esperanza Valdez with him and Leo can pretend his fire isn’t part of him. He can pretend he’s just a normal fucking person and that he can love and be loved without hurting them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo’s powers are a fucking problem but for now, he can suppress the age-old fear and let Jason hold him. Just for now. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tumbles wumbles is here: <a href="https://thelosttrio.tumblr.com/">thelosttrio</a>. feed me comments and kudos please. also!! i have a valgrace playlist. its old and cheesy but some of yous might find it enjoyable: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1eFhAcB2uvf5yWcqreNdth/">you can find it here!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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